The Blue Mountains

A Day Trip from Sydney, Australia

If you're looking for a great day trip out of Sydney, the Blue Mountains are the place to be. A two-hour train ride from Central Station to Katoomba, it’s an easy distance for a day, or a weekend.

Once in Katoomba there are a few options for getting to the park. There’s a trolley car, a hop-on hop-off company, and other shuttles that can take you to the National Park. If you’re interested in just going to one part, for trails or a visit, most will do a single ride service as well.

We did the full package with the hop-on hop-off, which included a pass at Scenic World. It's is a kind of nature themed amusement park in my mind. They have things like cable cars, boardwalks, and they boast the world’s steepest railway. It’s a good place maybe if you have kids, a school group, or aren’t the biggest outdoorsy type. For my friend and I we found it to be a little too domesticated in terms of hiking, and found the rides fairly short. You can ride them multiple times though, so if you’re a stickler for getting your money’s worth, there’s your shot!

You can ride this little guy across from the road entry to the park, or get this one on the way out. Your choice. If you want to take this, but don't have a ticket, don't worry. You can buy one on the other side!

If you enjoy the Indiana Jones' Theme Song, you're in luck, it's your theme song too on the way down the world's steepest railway.

We went cliffhanger. It was basically like standing while floating down a hill.

I'm a little excited to go!

View on the way down, that's not smoke, that's a window smudge.

Some walking around the plank-way

After our loop around Scenic world, it was back on the bus, and off to the most well-known feature in the area. The Three Sisters is one of the best-known sites of the Blue Mountains. There are a lot of trail options here. I'm sure the longer trails offer a great hike if you're looking for something a bit more in nature. We had limited time so we just took the one that ended at Honeymoon Lookout. A short hike, but nice lookout.

The Three Sisters

It's a bit windy!

After finishing up the rest of the bus route, which took us to the Cascades and the falls, we headed back to Katoomba to wait for our train. If you have any time to wait or are just looking for a nice dinner in town before heading back, we really enjoyed The Station Bar. It serves up some awesome pizzas, we just got appetizers here, but after getting tired on the train ride back really regretted not staying for a full dinner.

After a long day at the Blue Mountains, it was time to get back to Sydney and pass out. It was a beautiful day, filled with fresh air and great views.